I read David Swift’s Scouse Republic alongside Michael Heseltine’s breezily optimistic account of urban regeneration, From Acorns to Oaks. It’s impossible to deny that the city has brilliantly swerved the abyss of “managed decline”. It’s now a hen-night destination, a regular stop-off for luxury cruises, a seat of learning. The Georgian Quarter, with its cobbled streets shining under Narnian lamp-posts, is one of the most popular filming locations in the country. But Swift’s account of that voyage from chaotic sailor town to imperial port, from the Beatles to the Toxteth uprising, does not look away from the dark and stormy passages. If you ever feel tempted to flirt with trickle-down economics, remind yourself that in 1841, when the city was the premier port of the empire after London, life expectancy in Liverpool was 26. Seventy-five per cent of the lads who volunteered for army service were rejected for being unfit.

This is a highly personal book. Swift’s Israeli in-laws provide the story with a baffled chorus. He has a terrific eye for the telling detail. I will forever be quoting his story about how, in 1904, trumpet-tongued Jim Larkin – hero of the Belfast dock strike – buried a letter “to the future socialist society” in a biscuit tin underneath the foundation stone of the Anglican cathedral. There are chapters on the origin of the scouse accent, a short history of Eric’s nightclub, observations on the significance of Jürgen Klopp’s Christianity and a long overdue analysis of that weird cocktail of truth, disinformation and racism – the legend of Purple Aki, an intimidatingly large body builder of Nigerian origin whose possibly harmless but unnerving kink is asking young men if he can feel their muscles. A lot of people think he’s an urban myth.

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The title – Scouse Republic – nods towards Liverpool exceptionalism of the “scouse not English” type. But if Liverpool is so exceptional, why should a non-scouser want to read this? For one thing, because scouse exceptionalism – the idea that the city is too different, too socialist – is a myth that Swift takes to pieces in a chapter called Good Rioters, Bad Socialists. Liverpool is different. It experienced large-scale immigration long before most of the country. It experienced the loss of empire more directly. In David Goodhart’s world of Somewheres v Anywheres, scousers – myself included – are definitely Somewheres.